Homeless project nears completion
Premium content from Portland Business Journal - by Brad Berton
Date: Friday, March 4, 2011, 3:00am PST
Portland’s Old Town neighborhood will soon be home to perhaps the most ambitious and innovative homeless resource center the nation has ever seen.
Slated for a June opening, the $47 million complex will offer an unprecedented combination of facilities and services. Those include a 90-bed men’s transitional shelter; 130 affordable studio apartments serving people most vulnerable to homelessness; and a day center providing all manner of services for the homeless.
Recently named Bud Clark Commons in recognition of the former mayor’s efforts to alleviate homelessness in Portland, the eight-story, 106,000-square-foot complex is nearing completion along Northwest Broadway near Union Station. The Housing Authority of Portland is overseeing the project’s development on behalf of the city and its Portland Housing Bureau, with nonprofit shelter operator Transitional Projects Inc. playing key planning and operational roles as well.
“It’s as significant a development for serving the homeless as you’ll see anywhere in the country,” said Steve Rudman, executive director of the Housing Authority, a public corporation that serves all of Multnomah County and is Oregon’s largest affordable housing provider.
Development of the commons was a significant project during lean times for the construction industry.
Officials say the Old Town project created about 125 construction jobs.
General contractor Walsh Construction has awarded more than $5.5 million in construction-related contracts to minority- and women-owned businesses.
Key funding components included:
• $29.5 million in tax increment financing through the River District Urban Renewal Area.
• $11.7 million in federal low-income housing tax credit equity (invested by Wells Fargo).
• $3.3 million in federal stimulus funds.
Federal and local subsidies will help fund the center’s ongoing operating budgets. Annual operating costs in the first year are projected at a little less than $2 million for the day center and shelter. The city of Portland will fund 90 percent of that cost during the first year, said Portland Housing Bureau Director Margaret Van Vliet.
As expected in green-leaning Portland, the project — designed by Portland-based Holst Architecture — features a bevy of sustainable elements: eco-roofs, gray-water re-use, solar-heated water and the like. Developers anticipate receiving the top-tier Platinum certification under the LEED rating system.
Federal housing programs and city contributions will fund the permanent housing portion’s annual budget of just less than $1 million.
Rudman said that Bud Clark Commons is set to come in “on time, on budget and on mission.”
Neither Rudman nor any other principal player in the development thinks that Bud Clark Commons alone can substantially solve the Portland area’s — or even downtown’s — considerable homeless issues. While perhaps 1,000 struggling individuals will be served there on any given day, the shelter and apartments certainly can’t accommodate the entire Portland homeless population estimated at some 1,600.
But the new facilities will help a lot, said Doreen Binder, Transitional Projects’ executive director. Transitional Projects manages the city’s Glisan Street shelter, which is essentially being replaced by the Commons. The agency has helped transition some 600 clients annually from the street to housing. Binder expects the count to climb dramatically with so many services clustered at the new center.
Planning for the development — initially referred to as the Resource Access Center and now nick-named The Bud — occurred for much of the past decade. It represents a major thrust of Portland and Multnomah County’s response to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development’s mandate that local officials devise 10-year plans to end homelessness.
Given predictable resistance to a sizable facility serving poor individuals often struggling with substance dependencies and mental health issues, it wasn’t exactly an easy sell to the community, acknowledged the Housing Bureau’s Van Vliet.
But management teams at Bud Clark Commons aim to vigilantly enforce clear guidelines for client and resident behavior and for those that don’t belong at the complex, she said. A final Good Neighbor Agreement between the center’s management and neighborhood representatives remains under negotiation.
As planning evolved, the permanent housing units came to augment the initial plan, which combined just the shelter and day service facility. Portland’s housing commissioner, Nick Fish, played an instrumental role in supporting the expanded concept and securing funding.
Project planners determined that combining the three separately operating components at a single site would be an efficient means of serving the homeless, Rudman said.
“I think it’s a model that will stand the test of time,” he said.
Binder sees the center as providing a continuum of facilities and services helping alleviate homelessness in holistic fashion.
“We bring people off the street into the day center, move them into the shelter and then on to permanent housing.”
Bud Clark Commons
Location: Corner of Northwest Broadway and Hoyt Street.
Cost: $47 million
Features: 130 very low-cost apartments, 90-bed men’s shelter and a service center for the homeless.
Developer: Housing Authority of Portland
Funding: $29.5 million in tax increment financing, $11.7 million from low-income housing tax credits and 3.3 million in the form of federal stimulus funds.
Many groups will provide services to the homeless
Transitional Projects Inc. is working with 30-some organizations that will provide services at Bud Clark Commons. Among the resources to be offered at the day center: physical and mental health services; food and hygiene items; clothing and laundry facilities; showers and lockers; phone, mail and Internet services; identification and birth-certificate assistance; transit tickets and bicycle parking; and a pet area.
The shelter portion features sleeping, living and dining quarters as well as laundry and exercise facilities. With veterans anticipated to constitute perhaps half the shelter clients, the expected average stay is four months.
Residents of the 130 permanent housing studios will rank among the most vulnerable to slipping back into homelessness, said Rachael Duke, the Housing Authority of Portland’s assistant director of residential services. Using a formula called the Vulnerability Assessment Tool, local health clinics and homeless agencies are currently helping the Authority identify candidates for the studios — with more than 300 already assessed.
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